


windows up, walls down

by uniqueusernamegenerator



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Childhood Friends, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Pining, saw art for these 2 on twitter now im soft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29827116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uniqueusernamegenerator/pseuds/uniqueusernamegenerator
Summary: Boscha doesn't get the opportunity to say anything, because Skara beats her to the punch. The words come out breathless and ragged, but they come: "You don't have to go."~featuring:-gay silent treatment-weird music metaphors-2 pan disasters
Relationships: Amity Blight/Luz Noceda, Boscha/Skara (The Owl House), Minor or Background Relationship(s), if you squint
Comments: 32
Kudos: 66





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lexa_Alycia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexa_Alycia/gifts).



> check out her fic [Sing Me To Sleep](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29614707/chapters/72800004), it's great :]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> slow dancing on landmines

**I.**

_march_

One day Skara sits down to play the guitar, and the chords aren't _broken,_ exactly, but they're off.

Her dad says it's nothing to worry about. He's lying, though, because she spends the lull between ninth and tenth grade on the Titan's right knee.

When she steps outside on that first morning, the tips of her fingers go numb and bluish. It's, like, the most uncomfortable she's ever been, but the magic is soft under her boots, skating down the hills and between the splintered logs that make up their cabin. The quiet is palpable.

She's not used to that; she comes from a lineage of musicians. So Skara fills the days up talking to people — the tranquil lodge owner whose palisman is a crocodile, the girl in the neighboring cabin who has papercuts that won't heal. The bard track isn't just song, and she lives vicariously until she can't any more.

_april_

At some point, full of stories she doesn't know what to do with, she gets bored. She joins her dad, who slings himself across the benches with a cup of something and doesn't say anything until it's gone lukewarm. He says he's listening to music.

She thinks her friends might have said something about the budget cocoa they sell at the snowed-over food stand, an ear pitched to a silent staccato. It's not much of a vacation, just quiet and strange and a little enlightening.

When she gets home, she finds her guitar exactly where it was a month ago. She's out of practice, used to the gentle silence of the Knee right now, and so it doesn't sound perfect. But she finds herself adding an extra bar here, a riff there, a flat where it should be sharp, and when her mom gets home she grins at Skara from the doorway.

It wasn't ever really off in the first place.

_june_

_Skara: hey man_

_Skara: back from the knee which was CRAZYY_

_Skara: jk it was super boring. btw u wanna start a band? :)_

Her ex grins at her when they meet in the bard practice room, twirls a mallet around his burnt right hand (Beastkeeping internships are pretty brutal), and asks her when she's gonna have the time to practice, because _grudgby season sounds_ intense, _man_.

Skara gives him the most panicked expression she's ever had on her face. "I have _no_ idea."

"Hey, it's cool," he says, shrugging. "My Beastkeeping teacher says that it's the right decision if it comes from your heart."

"What if it's part of your heart?" Skara asks. She slips her instrument out of its case, cradles it like something fragile. Because it is. It's also, like, two thousand snails, so.

"What d'you mean?" he asks. He is leant back on one of their uncomfortable folding chairs like the world can't do a thing to him.

Skara's not envious. Maybe a little, though, 'cause she's pretty sure he's never loved anything except music and Beastkeeping and has never had to choose between the two. "It's, like, a Venn Diagram. Like one section of my heart is _here_ and the other part is wayyy over there next to my bile sac and one super off-the-wall part is like— both, Skara, pick both! You know?"

"Huh," He doesn't look like he knows. "Think you can figure it out?"

"I have literally no idea," she admits.

"Well," Chad says. Points a drumstick at her. "Go with the flow, dude. You warmed up?"

"You bet!" says Skara, even though she isn't.

The guitar is rough and out of tune from heat. She plucks an improvised strain into it, anyway, because the atmosphere is too slow and too heavy and she can't find the wrench she uses to wind and unwind the strings. It's something terrible that comes out, sounds more like distilled anxiety than real music, even when they finally find the tuning wrench. Anxiety can be its own kind of music, obviously, but not like this.

They try again with flute. Trumpet, harmonica, even a dusty-sounding cello that hasn't seen a bow in decades, probably.

So her last day of vacation whiles away with linoleum and rosin. She's probably supposed to miss the place she hasn't been all break, which will always be an array of clinical white and professional blue and heat-soaked sky. Her throwing arm's rustier than the brass doorknob to the storage space, but she doesn't find herself feeling anything except the loosening of a knot somewhere.

They aren't strictly supposed to be here, and they know it — so when the janitor slithers in to tidy up, they're already clustered into the space, which holds the items no one wants to see anymore.

People like to say that stumbling is not falling, but what they don't mention is that falling can be its own kind of victory. Which is maybe a super poetic way of saying that Skara trips over something in the instrument closet, takes Chad with her somehow, and almost breaks both their jaws.

Skara has a skinned knee. Chadly has a bruised elbow. Skara has a harp, unrusted and burnished, next to the boot that's been kicked off her foot. Chadly has a victorious, yawning smile on his face that's only outshone by the setting sun and the gleam in Skara's eye.

Grudgby has never felt quite like this.

_Tryouts Next Tuesday_ is scrawled onto a list that's been pinned to the bulletin board, and the slapdash writing is Boscha's.

Boscha who she hasn't spoken to in person for three months. Boscha who is acerbic and acidic and only apologized a few months after the incident last year. Boscha who will _understand_ if Skara's name isn't on there, no matter the reason, because she's Boscha and she's always had a soft spot.

Skara's always been the type to be prepared for things, but the first week of school is mind-numbingly busy, and her schedule's all filled up with composition, chromatics, concepts that she has to learn all over again. And when she finally manages to catch up to Amelia on Friday to ask where Boscha's gone, if she's transferred or something because Skara hasn't seen her _anywhere_ —

"She didn't text you?" Amelia blinks. "That's a trip. Oh, she's right—"

"Skara," someone says from behind her. "Where were you all vacation? Nerd town?"

It's been three months of no contact. A ghosting by technicality. Skara turns around. "No, I would've run into Amity. I missed you, though."

Boscha doesn't respond with anything acrid or acidic or acerbic, doesn't even acknowledge the in-joke, just looks her from head to toe and says, "Me too."

There's no trace of irony to soften the words, just something unbearable underneath her voice that's hard to react to. She's wearing her grudgby jacket, too, a familiar pink that drops a weight into Skara's chest, settles there. This will be difficult.

"Cool!" Skara says, instead of _HI HAVE YOU ALWAYS LOOKED LIKE THAT_ or _I'm quitting grudgby sorry not sorry._ "You, uh. Got-"

"Taller, yeah, I know. Cat would _not_ shut up about it, she was like oh my god Boscha you're like casting a shadow over me and I was like uh, _duh_? Like, ma'am, you have been the same exact height for four years-"

"Uh, bye, I guess," says Amelia, giving them both a glance as she leaves.

"Cat's tall," says Skara, but waves at Amelia because Amelia's nice.

"You're kidding."

"She's taller than me."

"Skara, _everyone's_ taller than you," Boscha goes, and that's sort of true. Will she ever admit it? Never. "Anyway, are you coming to tryouts next Tuesday?" Skara opens her mouth to say something, throat suddenly dry, but her friend says- "Because I could use your help. We gotta get all the equipment out, and-"

Skara frowns, hugs her books tighter, just to orient herself. "Wait, I thought you wanted me to try out."

Boscha rolls her eyes. "No _way,_ nerd. I don't need to make you run a bunch of laps to know you're good enough. I bet you could, like, murder all of them in your sleep."

It's such a _compliment_ is what it is, even if it involves murder, and Boscha doesn't say things like that. She's Boscha. It makes her feel all warm and tingly, and the whole thing freaks her out enough that she bursts out with everything — "No thanks, I'm not joining the grudgby team" — and then immediately regrets it.

Blink. Blink. Slightly slower blink. Slightly faster blink. Is this what she's doing now? Counting blinks?

Vaguely, she notices that the hallway's nearly empty and thinks that maybe they should both go home. Thinks that maybe she should join the grudgby team after all. Almost convinces herself that slinging that ball around is better than what she wants to do. Snaps out of it right before Boscha turns and walks away.

"Bye, Skara," she calls. Doesn't look back.

The rows of lockers are sharp teeth over faded red. Boscha, as usual, is rouge over pink and anger over anger.

Skara groans. She almost walks to catch up, but she told the girl from the Knee that some people don't want to be run after, and it feels like this is a good time to take her own advice. "Bosch, come back. We can _talk_ about this, okay?"

"Bye!" said witch calls, again.

"So mature," mutters Skara.

Boscha stops. Sends a glance back. Her eyes are narrowed. "Heard that."

Sigh. "Okay. I don't even know why we're arguing. Why'd you walk away again?"

"Because you quit the team."

"And...?"

"You're one of our best players."

"And."

Boscha miraculously, _finally_ turns around. "And I wanted to storm out of the school dramatically like in that stupid Good Witch Azorra movie Amity made us watch."

"Azura," Skara corrects on instinct, 'cause she's pretty sure that if she doesn't, somewhere, somehow, Amity Blight will find a way to become a ghost and haunt her for eternity.

"What _ever,_ drum dork. Just let me have my moment and we'll kiss and make up later. Not actually kiss, though, obviously, that'd be-"

Cat's picking her way across the empty hallway, and soon she will be here, and if Skara doesn't say something to alleviate this soon, it'll be awkward. It will be _very_ awkward and something will snap.

Boscha finishes with, "It's fine, though."

 _It's not fine,_ Skara thinks. _It's not that simple, and you just don't want to admit it._

But she doesn't want to push her. Doesn't know how to push her, anyway, not without losing something crucial. Maybe that's the problem. They've been friends since she was five years old and struggling to pick up tunes on the harmonica, and sometimes she still doesn't know who's home.

"I know," Skara says. "I know. Come on, walk me home."

"I wanna go to practice," says Boscha, but she lets Skara lead her by the arm. Later, when they're halfway to Skara's house, she complains, "Can't stand this."

Skara grins. She doesn't know everything, but she knows that Boscha only says that when she really means _you're the only one I can stand._

The deadline for grudgby team registration comes and goes. She technically has a slot already, but when she doesn't show up, someone else does. All the silences left by her absence are filled by someone else.

_july_

And then one day, on the bleachers, it all comes unraveled. She's being supportive. She's cheering and everything. She's the only one here, after all, so she's gotta carry, like, five times the enthusiasm.

"Woooo, yeah! You got this, girl!"

Boscha's running extra drills on the field again. She's all rouge hair and blurring sprints, violent athleticism over varsity jacket. Skara's bard homework sits heavy in her bag.

She's got three transcriptions due tomorrow, but it's cool. Some things are much more interesting.

She watches a telltale drizzle slant towards the pitch. Watches Boscha's sneaker catch and slip. Watches Boscha fall, limb over limb, and finds herself stumbling down the steps without really thinking about it.

The grass is damp under her knees. The rain's gone, but above them, it's still pale and gray.

"I'm fine," Boscha says, when she tumbles forward to help. Her jaw's clenched and she's clutching a leg to her chest and she is not fine at all. "You can go back, I know you've got homework."

She doesn't know if Boscha means it, but the last part twists with something else. Skara swallows. "No, you aren't," she says, gently, reaches out for something to soothe, something to help. "And if you don't wanna admit that, it's okay. Just let me-"

Boscha scrambles backwards, so Skara retracts her hand. "I'm okay!"

She laughs. "Bosch, c'mon, just let me-"

"No, seriously, just don't. I mean, what, you leave me on the Banshees with a bunch of amateurs and expect me to just...?"

Skara's face goes slack. The _heck?_

She shakes her head. A raindrop hits her nose, slides down. "You don't mean that, Boscha."

"Who says I don't? It's okay. You can just go, if you want to. Like Bo. And Cat."

Skara feels something pulse against her ribs, in her stomach. It's not really hurt, not yet, just a low _warning_ that rebounds up her spine. "Them leaving has nothing to do with _anything._ You fell and now I'm trying to help you. Why won't you just-"

Boscha laughs, but the pitch is all wrong. She doesn't look like she's in the best mental state, rain-slicked, jacket bunched-up and abandoned on the ground. "Yeah, you're trying to _help_ me. Okay. Like you helped me when you went off to start that band. What is it called? Mandible Magic?"

Skara tries to learn the words to this song. Fails. Only finds something hard and metal and alien in her chest.

"I mean, come on. Literally _everyone_ is magic. Might as well call yourself something unique, like Human Helpers. Pretty appropriate, right, I've seen how much you talk to that-"

"Boscha, _stop,"_ she snaps, and she kinda feels more than sees her go slack-jawed. _  
_

Boscha stops.

She looks at Skara kind of askew — like something has untied and will never be quite right again. Two of her eyes scrunch up at the corners like there's sun in them, but there is only gray sky in every direction.

In the back of her mind, Skara notes that her bun's come undone. There's violet trailing down her shoulder. If she looks pretty, it's outweighed by other things. "Okay," Boscha says, voice like an unhealing papercut. "Okay, fine, see ya, then."

Skara raises an eyebrow.

Alright. She can't help it if Boscha likes to extinguish things before they've had a chance to be built back up. The bridge is down; she's not going to burn herself trying to fix it.

"You know what?" she murmurs. "I think I will. See ya."

Skara gets up. She leaves.

Outside the stadium, she looks back just once. Impossibly, Boscha's back on her feet. _Always so competitive,_ Skara thinks, twists her hands together, almost goes back.

At lunchtime the next day, Boscha sets her tray down next to Selene's. She's across the room, but Skara's eyes settle on her anyway. Tearing herself away is a conscious effort.

The band room is chilly from air-conditioning. Chad isn't here— went to a party or something. Skara grabs her harp and doesn't read the sheet music, just plays, plays, plays until the sun runs out. She told Boscha, once, that instruments are basically really awesome babies and whoever says otherwise is dumb. It made her laugh when Skara said it and it makes Skara laugh now, even if she can't remember the context. She probably looks super dumb hanging out in the band room giggling to herself, but it makes her feel a lot better.

This is how it unfolds:

She gets Bo, who smiles at her every morning. She gets Cat, who makes the worst puns at the worst times. She gets Amelia, sheepish and genuine. She doesn't get Boscha, not anymore.

Skara's never really been the type for revenge, or fighting, or going a few without talking to her best friend, but it sort of just happens. One day she's thinking about varsity jackets and _see ya_ and then- nothing. Bard homework and final exams. Once in a while, she'll see a Penstagram post and feel something ache, but then Bo will sling an arm around her shoulder and she'll get caught up in whatever they're up to for the day.

It's all good. Really good, actually.

But she's not the best at handling stress, sometimes, okay. No one runs at a hundred percent every day and every night. Especially not her.

So, really, it unfolds like this:

_january_

Skara's plugging away at coursework at, like, 2 AM. It is literally two in the morning and she's not halfway done with this essay.

The moon's shafting through her window, and she's jittery with the sort of anxiety that gets even worse the less sleep you get. She cards a few fingers across her hair. Rereads the prompt for the eighth time: _Did Janaki the seventh do the right thing when she found out that Pyrrhus had betrayed her?_ Briefly entertains the idea of quitting and becoming one of those human artifact collectors.

She kicks back and puts her feet up on the desk and tries to fall asleep, at least, but she knows it'll be harder to finish it in the morning. Maybe she should take a walk, but it's even colder out there. Across the street, all the lights in all the houses are off; it makes her feel strangely alone.

And in the end, it's just instinct that has her reaching for her most familiar fallback.

"Um." Boscha's voice is sleepy and slow over the speaker. It sends Skara's heart thrumming a little faster. "Hello?"

"Hi," Skara says, though she wants to say _oh Titan this is so awkward goodbye_. She feels a little short of breath, and her fingers are itching to write something or draw or pluck at a harp until someone wakes up. "Were you up?"

"Uh, duh."

"I'm, um, doing our history homework."

"Why are you- it's two in the morning." For a second it's just her yawn, loud but measured. It's comforting against the solitude of the night, which has lent her no company and no warmth. "Are you, like, good?"

"Yeah! Yeah, I'm fine. I just have to finish this one thing and then I'm good to go. It's just a little hard because I- I don't know. I studied. I _know_ this stuff, I just can't-"

"Oh."

"Don't worry about it, though. I just wanted to talk to someone. We can go back to..." Skara blows out a breath. She forgets it too often, this new dynamic. It's maddening to her how something like this can just _end,_ full stop, after all the games of tag and grudgby. "...whatever."

When Boscha doesn't answer, she follows it up. "Get some sleep, okay?"

There are noises on the other end. Cursing and thuds, then the rush of air against the speaker, and then there is a long beep and Boscha has hung up.

Well. Okay.

History homework is stupid, and calling her was even stupider. She doodles in the margins. Here's Boscha— angry eyes and sharp teeth. Bo and Luz and Cat and Amelia are happy and have smiley faces. So does Amity, but she's also blushing because, like, come on. Grom queens? Hello?

She's working on drawing herself, wondering when the sun will show up, when there's a thud on her bedroom window. The chair doesn't get toppled over when she startles, but it's a close thing.

On the other side of the glass is Boscha, sullen and tired but _real._ She's got her jacket on. Not just a pose on Penstagram anymore.

Skara hasn't talked to her for a while. She's missed her for more than that.

The window is shoved open. Skara stands, helps her crawl over the desk that's under it; her hands feel soft. " _Woah,_ I could totally kiss you right now," she goes. Doesn't really mean anything by it. Boscha looks at her like a manticore in headlights anyway. "Also, I kind of have a door."

She doesn't say anything, just sits down in Skara's chair and grabs her quill from where she'd left it. Skara's too tired to tell her to be careful because that one's her favorite or punch her in the face for being dumb or kiss her like she said she could. She sits on the floor, leans against the foot of her bed, watches Boscha's hand twitch back and forth across the parchment. Wishes she had an instrument with her.

She'd play something, she thinks, maybe the cello. Low. Subtle. Rich. Something that says late-night and gratitude but also _please apologize already this is getting ridiculous you are so stubborn_ _._

The quill scratches as it writes; Skara turns it into a beat. It's the beginnings of a composition, a draft. A song, not a story, because songs don't need to carry themselves to an ending, just need to show that something's begun. She leaves it like that, rough around the edges. Some things aren't meant to be so polished.

Boscha gets blurry as the night goes on, but the thump in Skara's ears does not, and it lulls her beneath wakefulness. When Skara's eyes fly open, someone is climbing out the window, limb over rouge hair over pinkish fabric. She's barely conscious, but something in her brain says _stay stay stay get her to stay,_ and she listens.

She stumbled down the bleachers when she fell on the turf, and she's stumbled on without her for six months and now she stumbles across the room to wrap her fingers around her best friend's wrist.

Boscha doesn't get the opportunity to say anything, because Skara beats her to the punch. The words come out breathless and ragged, but they come: "You don't have to go."

The window's haloed her in dayglow-orange. She doesn't look anything like the girl from the rainy grudgby pitch.

"You're really confusing, you know that?" she says — the _audacity —_ but she stays.

In the morning, Skara doesn't let her climb out the window. That's super dangerous. Also, Boscha's managed to get herself injured again, an arm in a cast, and Skara's honestly not sure how she even got up here in the first place.

"Just come downstairs, drama queen."

"NO? Your family's gonna think I tried to kidnap you or something."

"My family loves you. C'mon."

"I cannot _stand_ when you-"

Skara claps a hand over her mouth. Like, she loves Boscha's voice, but sometimes she needs to stop talking. Stop thinking. Just. Yeah. "No. Hush."

Boscha rolls her eyes, and lets herself be led by the arm, and really, it's like they never stopped being friends.

She ushers them downstairs, into seats at the table. Her dad slides the syrup across the table and digs into his ghost toast without a second glance, only looks up to ask Boscha what she thinks about the Potions Coven's new set of guidelines. Boscha looks surprised and a little pleased, and responds with some jargon that's probably really inflammatory. Her dad argues the point until they're both late for school, but Skara was _right,_ take that.

It's only later that he texts her with: _next time you have a surprise sleepover let me know, S.M.H. I barely made enough breakfast._

 _u don't have to put the dots between the letters dad,_ she types. _also if i told you when it was happening it wouldn't be a surprise sleepover anymore..._

Her scroll pings after a minute. _not sure what U mean. Okay whatevs. Tell ur B.F.F. I said hi_

Skara grins. _okay now i kNOW you're doing that on purpose._

Later, in History, she gets two almost at the same time. One's from Chadly. He's sent a video of himself twirling his drumsticks and has so obviously edited the video so that it cuts off just before he drops them. _skillz,_ his text reads. _practice yes or no im dyin to work on that solo_

She's about to hit the thumbs-up, but on an impulse, checks her other messages first.

_Boscha: hey_

Skara literally drops her scroll which is kind of embarrassing but it doesn't matter because whoop-dee-doo, she's being texted by her ex-bestfriend who for some reason wrote an entire essay for her last night, oh god why. Luckily, she manages to catch it before it hits the ground.

_Boscha: meet me on grudgby pitch after school plz_

_Skara: Um I have stuff to do_

It buzzes almost immediately.

_Boscha: trust me it wont take long_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> उस हाथ को तुम थाम लो,  
> जो है समाँ कल हो न हो.

_march, a year ago_

The lull between eighth and ninth grade is sweet and clear. It's long weeks in the shade of Dead Man's Curve, almost alone, with not much to do. Skara sips her apple blood, and Boscha watches her face curl around a smile on its way to a joke. Sometimes, Boscha tries to climb one of the shorter columns that supports the road's weight. She fails every time, but she'll never stop trying.

In second grade, they learned about erosion — how the Boiling Sea will crash again and again and again against the sturdy ivory of the Titan's skeleton, tear shred by shred by shred until the surface of the bone is smooth and featureless. _The ocean never rests,_ they learned.

But she knows what it's like now, to stop a wave: it's the shadow-washed red of the hills and the blaring red on the backs of her closed eyes and the faded red of Skara's bard track uniform that is the first thing she sees when she opens them. Time goes very still and very quiet every time they crest that hill, and when she wants to, she climbs until her palms hurt.

Skara brings stuffy poetry books and archaic scrolls and terrible romance novels that she reads because it makes her feel like she's In Love (capital I, capital L). Reading is boring, but Boscha peers over at the poetry with her third eye, sometimes, and falls asleep to the beat of it and wakes up with her head on Skara's shoulder.

"Keep reading. You need all that knowledge," she tells her once, sleepily. "For when I become famous. And you have to protect me from assassins."

Skara, silver-eyed, golden-hearted, always pats the top of the head absently and ignores her. They both know the truth, and Boscha has always hated being ignored, but she thinks she's okay with this.

_last february_

The last day of ninth grade, Skara lies: "I'll text you when I get home!"

_march  
_

All vacation, Boscha thinks about an empty scroll.

She stomps through Bonesborough with her friends, and downstairs to eat dinner with her family, and around the grudgby pitch when she doesn't really have to. Skara would probably say something annoying and smart like _you're overworking yourself_ or _it's okay if you're not the best_ or _let's hang out somewhere else,_ but Skara's on the Knee.

Honestly, what was she expecting. Months like that don't belong in their lives. Like, what was she even _doing,_ spending so much time away from the field?

One day, she visits that shaded-over spot, because she can't quite seem to answer that question. Everything is off by a degree, and no matter how much she kicks leaves to the side and uproots grass, it's never the same as it was. Some part of her wants to keep going.

The edge of dusk on the horizon reminds her that this was Skara's place before it was hers, and so she leaves it alone.

So all vacation, she stomps and stomps, but it doesn't change anything. Skara's never here to say something mean, or something kind, and when she turns her scroll over, it's always perfectly blank. Literally three months, maybe less if Boscha could do math, but she finds she'd never really missed being the ocean.

_may  
_

It's a place she's tried not to think about since March, but once, in the middle of the night, she returns. Her boots are kicked off, leather gloves slipped on.

She claws her way up the pillar in the dark and she doesn't fall; her fingers are steady over the bone, and she doesn't fall. She heaves herself over the edge, and she doesn't fall. She turns and sits with her legs dangling over the side. The top of the Titan's skull is a careful smudge.

She could text Cat or Amelia or Selene, but none of them would get it. _I did it,_ she thinks, but doesn't have anyone to say it to.

_june (GRUDGBY TRYOUTS TUESDAY, REMEMBER BRING SPARE BALL!!!)  
_

So. First week of school. Shit goes down.

She doesn't ever like to send the first text, which is why the last message in her and Skara's DMs is _last day of school tmr! :)._ It's not really intention that has her typing, so she has to stop herself just before she hits the Send button.

 _hey skar, hru?_ lives in her phone and doesn't leave.

Maybe she expected that the crackle of an empty vacation would bring something charged with it; expected something awkward and new and _different_.

But: she walks up to Skara in that first week, can talk to her on their own little island in the middle of the hallway, doesn't have to pick up the scroll until it buzzes on its own. When Skara says, "I missed you," in the small voice she only uses for secrets, she is honest and says it back in the voice she only uses for Skara.

_july (GAME 17TH)  
_

It doesn't take a lot to learn that she can make old mistakes, too, act on impulse, do the same _stupid_ fucking things that she's always done, only even stupider now because this is her best friend.

She's Boscha and she doesn't fall anymore, not after tearing her way up to the sky, but she _does._ The pitch is too slippery or her sneakers are broken or something distracts her, but she falls, and her leg twists and goes slack under her weight. It hurts less than Skara walking away.

 _I'm sorry,_ Boscha thinks, stomps and stumbles on her way up, almost is the one to call out first. They lose the game that Friday. They lose the game after that, too.

_october  
_

Skara isn't her friend anymore.

Maybe she'd assumed, too soon, that it would be like this forever: Boscha, trampling, snarling, and Skara, leaving a paper trail of silver on all the places she'd eroded. She wants to do something like that, now, be messy and cruel and destroy the remnants of whatever that was. Burn them both out so she can build herself back up.

She doesn't, but there's still a bit of her in all that Boscha does, and when she shouts: "Relax, guys, coach isn't here!" it rings too familiar across the grounds.

Fresh off the split, Boscha feels acidic and acerbic and alert. There's a brand new crop of Banshees this year — some from last year, but most are new faces. They've done drills, tryouts, but today is the first time she really _sees_ them — sees the sloppy technique and the cutting corners and the raw potential that hums just under the surface.

The coach is probably raiding the hard apple blood stash in the janitor's closet again. If they want, they can take the afternoon free like they always do, mess around and play catch or something. She can toss the ball a little too viciously and think about red, rolling hills.

Or.

"Hey," someone calls from the center of the pitch, mid-throw. Renee or Reese or Remy or something like that. "We're playing hide-and-screech, you coming?"

Skara would say _let's go,_ or _it'll be fun,_ or _they deserve a break._ Something lodges out of place like a dislocated knee.

"No," she says, and gets up from the bench. Her leg is still wobbly from a few months ago. She doesn't shout, but her voice carries, anyway. "Screw coach. Tell everyone to get their shoulder protectors on."

"But-"

"We are _done_ losing games. Put the fucking gear on," she says, and observes as the course of adrenaline sends her brain buzzing like it used to.

Instead of trying to stop time, she turns the clock: moves faster, and faster, until it doesn't matter how it passes. The nerves jangle under her skin no matter what.

_december (READ UP STRATEGY!!! WORK ON SPRINTS. U GOT THIS GIRL **⭐** )  
_

Sundays should be for _relaxing,_ jeez, but Boscha's up at the local Potions Shack on her dumb little internship. It always leaves her hands super dry when she's done, which is gross, but, like, it'll look good on applications.

Ms. Hemlock's gone out to eat, and no one's approaching the ordering stand, so she's stuck idling at the counter alone. She fans herself through the heat and waits. Thinks about grudgby strategies, how in 1973 someone did an abominations vault on one foot and-

"Hey, Boscha."

Boscha looks up. Sees glasses, a blue uniform. "Ew, why are you here."

"To get a potion?" Cat says tentatively, like Boscha's going to punch her or something. Wow. "Ska- um, my friend needs something really strong to clean a harp because apparently plain paper towels aren't, like, viable? And she needs it really soon because they're gonna perform at the library tomorrow."

Her name wasn't said, but Boscha knows immediately, anyway, because that's how broken friendships work. "Ugh, harp? Of course she would, she _loves-_ god, why am I talking to you? Give me a minute."

Cat raises an eyebrow. "Uh. Sure?"

Making potions unsupervised isn't in her job description, but she can fly under the radar for a bit. She rolls her sleeves up and grabs the mixer, lays sets of ingredients out like dominos in a row. The instructional manual is in arm's reach. She doesn't pick it up.

"How is she?" Boscha blurts at the cauldron. Cat doesn't answer; she's on her scroll now. Probably didn't hear it. Whatever.

Thinking about her still aches, and Boscha's always been the type to make a papercut worse. She lets a curtain of calm descend onto her thoughts, picks the items by touch and drops them in the pot and stirs the memory in the back of her head. For a small eternity, it's not her moving the limbs, just some unseen force with hands and wings.

When the fog lifts, she corks it up with a stopper, hands it to a bemused Cat while shaking the daze off. "Sorry it took so long. I totally zoned out for, like, an hour. Here, free of charge or my boss'll find out."

"Uh. It's only been a minute," she answers, still searching Boscha's face warily for a catch. "You guys had practice today, right? Did you hit your head?"

"Get lost. And don't tell her about this."

Cat doesn't get lost, though, just smiles and drops the vial into her pocket. _Careful,_ Boscha wants to warn, but she isn't even sure she should care.

The other girl's face softens all of a sudden, and she lowers the scroll and magics it away and says, "Skara's good. I think she'd be better with you there, though."

Too soon. Too sharp. "Get _lost_ _,_ Cat," Boscha manages, and this time, it works.

Without Cat or Amelia or Skara, the new team is pure mutiny, and she learns for the first time that arguments are not always about winning.

Boscha dives violently and headfirst into being an actual captain, and then she takes a few steps back and wades in again, because she finds that it works best when they're all on the same wavelength. Finds that anything else will only get her shaky hands and weak passes.

It pays off, too.

She gets out what she puts in: there's Eileen, slouchy and tired, _fast_ with some training; Rhys, who slings their way around the field with rebellious intensity and laughs like a songbird when coach doesn't bother to show; that weird former detention track kid who drops in on a fucking griffin every practice (Boscha stops complaining about it after the third time).

Which is great, but they also have zero boundaries off the pitch, which means they try to _talk_ to her. Like, okay, being praised is great, but praise doesn't include small talk when she's trying to study in the library and definitely does not involve talking Viney through her tongue-tied crush at lunch.

 _For fuck's sake,_ Boscha thinks, accepting another hallway fist bump, _I regret everything._

(They like her, though. They like that she doesn't put kid gloves on before telling the truth, and that's. Well. That's new.)

Anyways, they're all very annoying, and when some Glandus _bitch_ decides to go for a violent tackle on Everett, Boscha charges headfirst and ends up with a black eye, a red card, and a dull twinge up her wrist. Adrenaline and residual magic carry her straight to the bench and straight through the post-victory bash and straight on home, where she learns that she, in fact, has managed to fracture her arm and get a concussion. Fucking Glandus.

_january (keep cast dry! healer appt 15th)_

And, as it goes, Boscha's up at 2 AM texting some girl on the team through a messy breakup — doesn't _care,_ really, just needs a distraction right now — and the scroll buzzes with a call in her palm.

She sneaks out. Brackets herself into a corner and braces, maneuvers, drags herself through Skara's window one-handed. She's had a lot of practice.

The prompt reads: _did Janaki the seventh do the right thing when she found out that Pyrrhus had betrayed her_? Skara’s name — that messy, delirious, musical handwriting — is slashed across the top of the page. Boscha already has a bold _YES_ on her own essay back home, but now she thinks of lazy, stretching timestops under the shade and writes _No_ _, she did not._

So: Boscha maybe borrows a bunch of potion ingredients from the school and slips them into a cauldron during her free block. She maybe mixes and sifts and thinks about the hard edge of assurance that's always been behind those eyes and thinks about the truth, which is that she only wants to be famous if it involves their fingers laced together. Thinks about how she wants to lean over a swanky balcony in the most cliche way possible and not need to look over to know that it's just them.

She learns a few things:

  1. Strength potion is an easier brew than it looks.
  2. She is probably In Love with Skara, probably has been for a while now, which is not a good thing.
  3. Except it is, because it's _Skara,_ and how can anything Skara not be good, really.



The grudgby pitch, clinical and heat-soaked, is abandoned for the day. Boscha waits for a few minutes, kicks at the ground, almost loses her nerve before she looks up and realizes there's a figure sitting on the bleachers.

Deja-vu slinks up and thickens in her windpipe. Fuck, this is so much harder in daylight.

Boscha clears her throat, shouts, "Hey!"

"Hi," Skara says. She doesn't yell it out — of course she doesn't — and Boscha has to strain her ears to hear it when she continues with, "I'll be down in a sec!"

She flies down the steps like someone out of a movie. No one on the team would be able to move that fast carrying an instrument case so big. When she jogs over, Boscha goes, "I thought you played harp, not cello."

"I'm. Writing a song on it," Skara says, glancing away, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear with her free hand. Then her gaze snaps back with an intensity and Boscha does _not_ care, is not affected. "Wait, how'd you know?"

"Heard it going around," she lies. "And- I don't know, just seemed like a _you_ thing. Ready for a field trip?"

"A me thing," Skara repeats, kinda frowns. "Boscha, I'm flattered, but you said this wouldn't take long and I gotta get to the bard room-"

"Then cancel," Boscha says, easily. "Just for today."

Skara just stares for a second, but then she grabs her scroll and sends off a text. "Chadly's gonna be so sad. I hope this is worth it."

 _Me too,_ Boscha thinks, even as Skara's hand brushes hers on the way into the bard room to drop off her instrument, and again when they move past Hexside's gates.

(They have different teachers. Absentminded, overworked teachers who never cross-check papers. It would've been easier to write the exact same essay, same points, same matter-of-fact prose.

Except: she isn't an illusion tracker, has never been a bard tracker, had never understood how _anyone_ could rewrite words they didn't believe in anymore. Didn't get how both of them were so content with pretending before the split. Understood, when she tasted salt on her lips at the concluding paragraph, that apologies are a different kind of brutality.)

By the time they get to the shadowy hill, the day's sipped away most of its light. Everything's the same as it was a couple vacations ago — slow and liquid, the crest of a wave. All of the scarlet grass has grown back.

When she takes the vial out of her pocket, it glints a weak lilac in the dimness.

"It'll help you climb," Boscha explains, holding it out. "Since you're such a music nerd now."

"Um, excuse you. I'm still an honorary jock," Skara says, and doesn't take it, which Boscha should've expected but whatever. She grins, drops her bag, approaches one of the shorter columns that holds the road up. "Watch and learn."

Boscha knows they're older now, stronger than they were. It's still disconcerting to see her scramble up the bone so fast. Skara sits there, peering down from the edge, and calls, "Are you gonna catch me if I fall?"

Boscha stares at the plaster covering half her right arm, the left hand that holds misted glass over sloshing purple. "Fuck that. I'll do you one better."

Her potions normally taste terrible, but this one is misty and sweet before she folds the vial back into her pocket. She doesn't want to dwell on that, so she tucks her bad elbow in, tells herself this is the worst idea ever, and charges at the column.

It's barely doable with both arms, should be impossible with one, but it doesn't seem to matter with the potion coursing through her. And by the time she hauls herself over the edge, hands burning, arm white-hot, Skara's already settled. The pain's sort of worth it to see her just chilling there, swinging her legs over the edge of Dead Man's Curve.

"Thanks," Skara says, before Boscha can. Her eyes traverse the Titan's ribs, settle on the red line of the horizon. "I think I needed this. I've been studying _way_ too much."

"Sure," Boscha says, shifts so all her weight's leant back on her left arm. "Not a, uh, not a problem."

"Was this you trying to apologize?" she glances over, and she is soft and silver like she's always been. "'Cause, y'know, I'm gonna be honest. It's kind of working.

"Nah. This was me showing off."

"Riiiight, okay. Showing off by making me climb up a road that gets struck by lightning every other week. I believe you," Skara turns, very suddenly. "How'd you even do that just now? Isn't your arm, like..."

Things are so different like this, when it's not one of them on the bleachers and the other down on the field. Boscha shrugs with one shoulder, kind of wants to grandstand about it. "Strength potion."

"Cool," she says, facing back towards the edge of dusk. "But maybe don't do that again."

She doesn't know why she was expecting Skara to be more insistent; was expecting her to poke and prod and push like Boscha always does, _stop it, stop risking things — _but it makes her realign, relax. Time goes sticky and amber-still, like it used to. All they need now is a book.

"I'm kinda super sorry, though," Boscha says. It's easier to get the words out up here, where the air is thin and cold, where there's no deja-vu blocking up her throat. "For being, like, really jealous and weird and stuff."

Skara smiles. It would probably make Boscha breathless if it wasn't so familiar. "Last night? When you crawled in? You scared me _so_ bad, I thought you were a Slitherbeast or something."

"I'm _way_ too pretty to be a Slitherbeast." Boscha says bluntly. "I am offended, Skara."

She laughs, something high and melodic, and says, "Yeah, I know. And it's okay, I forgive you. This year's been really weird."

It's not a lie this time, but Boscha almost tastes salt anyway. Some part of her wonders what it would be like if everything else was like this place. If the sea still boiled, still itched under its skin for that deja-vu movement, but came crashing down to a slow simmer and didn't break the shoreline again.

She thinks of how Amity's gone soft since Grom, thinks of the fierce intensity underneath, sort of understands it.

_february 1st_

When the clock hits midnight at home, she welcomes the new month. She sends the first text, dips the quill into jet-black ink.

_Boscha: come 2 my game tmr in case u have forgotten how 2 play grudgby xoxo_

_Skara: omg im not going to forget stop it_

_Skara: ill be there <3 get some sleep_

She flips the calendar to February and scrawls a little picture: the top of the Titan's skull, ribs in a disjointed row. Skara sitting beside her on the winding road, explaining composition and chromatics and concepts like it's natural as breathing. The hills below, red, rolling.

_Boscha: i will if u do_

_Skara: i am i promise_

_Boscha: k gn cellotape  
_

_Skara: that was lame and as an up and coming bard i am very disappointed but good job gn :)))  
_

_Boscha: girl bye_

On the other side of the neighborhood, Skara gets up from her desk, sets her quill down. She doesn't finish the worksheet on arpeggios that's half-blank on her desk, just flops onto her bed and welcomes the encroaching darkness.

She doesn't dream; it's been a long day already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my friend refused to call this one anything but "the chapter where boscha becomes a soccer mom" so now you have to hear it too
> 
> quote at the start of the chapter is a mix of lyrics from the song kal ho naa ho and basically means, "Hold that hand, this moment might not be there tomorrow." why didnt i just write the lines in english? bc the entire fic is in english and my ancestors are rolling in their graves. gn <3


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